Monday, January 20, 2014

A Birth Story

[Mia's first week]

Charlie came early and Mia kept us waiting.

Mia was due on 7th of
January and since Charlie had arrived 9 days early I expected Mia would
make her appearance somewhere between Christmas and New Year. I was
hoping like heck it wouldn't be Christmas Day, I wasn't thrilled about
the prospect of a New Years Eve baby either but would have gladly taken that
over Christmas.

Christmas came and went, phew... New Years came and
went... Ian's cousin's wedding I didn't know if I'd make came and went... Our due date came and went... an extra week came and went...

By this stage I was three weeks past my expectation
of when number two would arrive and Ian had long since gone back to
work. Work being back home 3 hours away while I twiddled my thumbs
waiting at my parent's house. Luckily the third trimester is my
favourite and I wasn't too concerned, except that the home birth program
won't birth you at home past 42 weeks. I had been booked in for an
appointment at the hospital to give me a check up and determine if they
were still happy for me to birth at home, even though I still had a week
before hitting 42 weeks. I had made it this far without requiring an
ultrasound for either of my pregnancies and I was not looking forward to
them demanding one to keep me on the program. But if that's what it
was going to take I would have taken that option over a hospital birth.

I woke on Tuesday morning around 2.30am to pee and
felt a couple of twinges but nothing more and went back to sleep. I
awoke in the morning and nothing. I should back up here and tell you
that Ian had come to see us for the weekend, keen to get things
happening we (how to put it politely?)… had "relations" on Friday night, and Saturday morning I had a bloody show. We went out shopping for a
good part of the day, all that walking... nothing... Saturday afternoon,
lost my mucous plug... still nothing... Saturday night... Sunday
morning... Out for breakfast with friends... Sunday afternoon... still
nothing... by this stage I was getting a little discouraged at the lack of
action, Charlie was born within hours of these signs and Ian would have
to go back to work Monday morning, I really didn't want him to go again, but there I was very early Monday morning kissing him goodbye.

So after all this I woke on Tuesday morning not
feeling anything and I wasn't going to get my hopes up. I had a 9.15
appointment at the Mac Store for my laptop that I wasn't going to miss,
so off Charlie and I went. It's quite funny going out in public after
your due date, people ask when you're due, when you tell them last week,
they freak out expecting your waters to break right there and then,
gushing all over their floor. Anyway, I didn't feel like going back to
Mum and Dad's with nothing to do because you prudently don't make plans
for those weeks after your due date. I rung my girlfriend who's day off
(thank goodness) is Tuesdays and we hung out at her place with her two
boys all day. I started having what I thought were random painful Braxton Hick's throughout
the afternoon, but I still wasn't getting my hopes up. We went across
the road to the park, we fed the kids dinner and we bathed them before I
piled Charlie in the car at six o'clock and headed home.

I timed the contractions on the drive home and they
were 8 mins apart, I was getting a little hopeful at this stage but not
yet excited. I called Ian at 6.30pm when I got to my parent's house and
said I'm not convinced this is labour so I'll call you in half an hour
and if they're still regular come down. Smart man was on his way when I
called back. Charlie had fallen asleep in the car and was an easy
transfer to bed. My sister and her wife were flying out the next morning
for work and Claudie my sister in law had hoped not to be there for the
labour. I sat in their room with them for a while before the
contractions were too strong to chat. Then the pacing and the waiting
for Ian began. Dad blew up the birthing pool and filled it.

Ian arrived not long after 10pm and I called the
midwife. I did not catch her on a good night, and I could tell she was
not thrilled with my call. This is unfortunate because it took the
sparkle off our birth experience. She apologised when she saw me next
and I'm glad she did because I knew she hadn't been as great as our
first midwives at Charlie's birth and I was quite pissed off to be
honest. Anyway, she arrived an hour later at 11.15pm got herself
organised and rang the second midwife. I hopped in to the pool. My Dad
was still about, some water had leaked under the sink from filling up
the pool. Ideally, we wanted as least people present as possible, but
that is difficult when you're at someone else's house.

Because there was stuff going on and people about, I
did not get to go in to that inner space the 'cone of silence' and I
found my labour a bit more painful than the first time. This might also
have been contributed to by the fact that my first labour was so much
easier and less painful and quicker than I was expecting so I had high
expectations that this second labour was going to be quicker again and
even easier/less painful. There was a point when I wondered how long I
was going to be in labour since everything was seeming the opposite to my first labour and I thought I couldn't do this if it was going
to be hours and hours.

The second midwife arrived, and I was so not "in the
cone of silence" that I called out a hello to her as she walked in the
front door. And ten minutes later at 11.45pm Mia was born. They have my
second stage of labour down at seven minutes, not long, I didn't have to
worry about things dragging on for hours. Mia's head did not cone, but
came out at 35cm perfectly round. I didn't have any trouble getting her
head out, but our little miss was barrel chested and stayed put for a
couple of contractions, at this point they told me to push. I tried, I
had nothing, I wondered why they couldn't just grab a hold of her head
and pull her out. Ian tried to touch her while she was under the water
like that but was told not to. At Charlie's birth he was encouraged to
touch and being the first person to touch/catch/hold Charlie is one of
his proudest moments. I'm sorry for him that he didn't get that the
second time round. In our midwive's defence, she was concerned that if
you stimulate a baby before they surface it might try to breath under
the water. I do not agree, and it would have been good to know
beforehand for the sake of expectations.

Mia had an extremely short umbilical cord and
so when the midwife tried to lift her out of the water behind me, there
wasn't enough length and she quickly shoved her back under me and
through to the front, so Ian was really cut out of that equation too. I held her in the water and thought she was short
and chubby, but she was long and chubby! She was 56cm long and 4.51kg!
Only one ounce off 10 pound!! I'm pretty proud of that :)

While we waited for the placenta to come out Charlie
woke up and Ian bought him down to meet his new sister. Of course it
was the middle of the night and he had just woken up, I don't think he
knew what to make of it all with his dad suddenly there and me in the pool holding a new baby. We moved to the couch and they gave me a
stitch. Neither of the midwives normally do stitches but I told them to
have a go, I didn't want someone else to have to come the next
day and give me a needle and then stitch me.

Without losing blood like I did with Charlie I felt pretty good immediately, if a little tired. This time I even had a shower and could walk myself
to bed. Though I didn't have the high I did after I
gave birth to Charlie, but I think that was partly my expectation that
things would be quicker and easier second time around and them not
being, and our midwife who was going through some personal issues.

My Sister and Claudie did not get much sleep before waking up and 5am or so to catch their flight, but it was nice for them to meet Mia before they left for two weeks. My Dad's generosity loading up the midwives with bottles of wine and being so excited he had to call one of his brothers in the middle of the night was pretty sweet too.

[Mia this last week]

At
the end of the day we got a beautiful healthy baby and that's what
really matters. We fell in love with her pretty quickly and I'm so glad I
didn't stop at one. This past year has been easier than I expected having two precious babies. I don't know if that's because of Mia's temperament or because I'm not a first time mum fumbling in the dark. Who knows! What I do know is that we are lucky to have her, sweet, sweet girl.